Patel is out - what's next in the Tory leadership contest?

With the lowest number of votes from fellow MPs – 14 out of 121 – Priti Patel has automatically dropped out of the running to be Tory leader.

- SEAN O'GRADY

The remaining five are, in descending order, Robert Jenrick (28 MPs voting for him); Kemi Badenoch (22); James Cleverly (21); Tom Tugendhat (17); and Mel Stride (16). The next round of voting is on Tuesday and the surviving quartet will be on parade at the Conservative conference. Following that, the final two will be chosen by the parliamentary party and the eventual winner will be chosen by the 170,000 or so Conservative Party members.

The new leader will be revealed on Saturday, 3 November. There’s still much to play for…

What went wrong for Priti Patel?

Her enthusiasm for taking power away from the MPs and handing it to party activists didn’t commend her to colleagues. But there is more to her lack of appeal than that. Dame Priti’s greatest strength is her long experience as a minister in successive Conservative governments; unfortunately, that is also one of her greatest weaknesses. She’s been sacked or overlooked by three Tory prime ministers and has found herself in a few scrapes over the years.

One of the strangest was a freelance foreign policy initiative taken while she was international development secretary in 2017. Technically “on holiday” in Israel, and without the knowledge (let alone permission) of the then prime minister Theresa May, Patel met a number of government officials and reportedly suggested that a portion of Britain’s aid budget could be diverted to the Israel Defence Forces – an organisation not noted for malnutrition or lack of basic education. She was eventually fired by May.